Power has voice, and that voice is the Song of the Tanno Spiritwalker.
HE AWOKE TO A FAINT, DAMP NUZZLING AGAINST HIS SIDE. EYES slowly opened, head tilted downward, to see a bhok’aral pup, patchy with some sort of skin infection, curled against his stomach.
Kalam sat up, suppressing the urge to grab the creature by the neck and fling it against a wall. Compassion was not the consideration, of course. Rather, it was the fact that this subterranean temple was home to hundreds, perhaps even thousands of bhok’arala, and the creatures possessed a complex social structure-harm this pup and Kalam might find himself beneath a swarm of bull males. And small as the beasts were, they had canines to rival a bear’s. Even so, he fought to contain his revulsion as he gently pushed the mottled pup away.
It mewled pathetically and looked up at him with huge, liquid eyes.
‘Don’t even try,’ the assassin muttered, slipping free of the furs and rising. Flecks of mouldy skin covered his midriff, and the thin woollen shirt was sodden from the pup’s runny nose. Kalam removed the shirt and flung it into a corner of the small chamber.
He’d not seen Iskaral Pust in over a week. Apart from occasional tingling sensations at the tips of his fingers and toes, he was more or less recovered from the enkar’al demon’s attack. Kalam had delivered the diamonds and was now chafing to leave.
Faint singing echoed from the hallway. The assassin shook his head. Maybe one day Mogora will get it right, but in the meantime… gods below, it grates! He strode to his tattered backpack and rummaged inside until he found a spare shirt.
Sudden thumping sounded outside his door, and he turned in time to see it flung open. Mogora stood framed in the doorway, a wooden bucket in one hand, a mop in the other. ‘Was he here? Just now? Was he here? Tell me!’
‘I haven’t seen him in days,’ Kalam replied.
‘He has to clean the kitchen!’
‘Is this all you do, Mogora? Chase after Iskaral Fust’s shadow?’
‘All!’ The word was a shriek. She stormed up to him, mop thrust forward like a weapon. ‘Am I the only one using the kitchen! No!’
Kalam stepped back, wiping spittle from his face, but the Dal Honese woman advanced.
‘And you! Do you think your suppers arrive all by themselves? Do you think the shadow gods simply conjure them out of thin air? Did I invite you here? Are you my guest? Am I your serving wench?’
‘Gods forbid-’
‘Be quiet! I’m talking, not you!’ She thrust the mop and bucket into Kalam’s hands, then, spying the bhok’aral pup curled up on the cot, dropped into a predatory crouch and edged closer, fingers hooked. ‘There you are,’ she murmured. ‘Leave your skin everywhere, will you? Not for much longer!’
Kalam stepped into her path. ‘Enough, Mogora. Get out of here.’
‘Not without my pet.’
‘Pet? You’re intending to wring its neck, Mogora!’
‘So?’
He set the mop and bucket down. I can’t believe this. I’m defending a mangy bhok’aral… from a D’ivers witch.
There was movement in the doorway. Kalam gestured. ‘Look behind you, Mogora. Harm this pup and you’ll have to face them.’
She spun, then hissed. ‘Scum! Iskaral’s beget-always spying! That’s how he hides-using them!’
With a ululating scream she charged into the doorway. The bhok’arala massed there shrieked in answer and scattered, although Kalam saw one dart between her legs and leap onto the cot. It scooped the pup up under one arm then bolted for the corridor.
Mogora’s wailing cries dwindled as she continued her pursuit.
‘Hee hee.’
Kalam turned.
Iskaral Pust emerged from the shadows in the far corner. He was covered in dust, a sack draped over one bony shoulder.
The assassin scowled. ‘I’ve waited long enough in this madhouse, Priest.’
‘Indeed you have.’ He cocked his head, tugging at one of the few wisps of hair that remained on his pate. ‘I’m done and he can go, yes? I should be kindly, open, scattering gold dust to mark his path out into the waiting world. He’ll suspect nothing. He’ll believe he leaves of his own free will. Precisely as it should be.’ Iskaral Pust suddenly smiled, then held out the sack. ‘Here, a few diamonds for you. Spend them here and there, spend them everywhere! But remember, you must breach the Whirlwind-into the heart of Raraku, yes?’
‘That is my intent,’ Kalam growled, accepting the sack and stuffing it into his own backpack. ‘We do not proceed at cross-purposes, Priest, although I realize you’d rather we did, given your perverse mind. Even so… breach the Whirlwind… without being detected. How will I manage that?’
‘With the help of Shadowthrone’s chosen mortal. Iskaral Pust, High Priest and Master of Rashan and Meanas and Thyr! The Whirlwind is a goddess, and her eyes cannot be everywhere. Now, quickly collect your belongings. We must leave! She’s coming back, and I’ve made another mess in the kitchen! Hurry!’
They emerged from the warren of shadow beneath a large outcropping, in daylight, less than a hundred paces from the raging wall of the Whirlwind. After three strides forward Kalam reached out and grabbed the priest by the arm and spun him round.
‘That singing? Where in Hood’s name is that singing coming from, Iskaral? I’d heard it in the monastery and thought it was Mogora-’
‘Mogora can’t sing, you fool! I hear nothing, nothing but the wild winds and the hiss of sands! You are mad! Is he mad? Yes, possibly. No, likely. The sun broiled his brain in that thick skull. A gradual dissolution-but of course not, of course not. It’s the Tanno song, that’s what it is. Even so, he’s probably still mad. Two entirely separate issues. The song. And his madness. Distinct, unrelated, both equally confounding of all that my masters plan. Or potentially so. Potentially. There is no certainty, not in this damned land, especially not here. Restless Raraku. Restless!’
With a snarl, Kalam pushed the man away, began walking towards the wall of the Whirlwind. After a moment, Iskaral Pust followed.
‘Tell me how we’re going to manage this, Priest.’
‘It’s simple, really. She’ll know the breach. Like a knife stab. That cannot be avoided. Thus, misdirection! And there is none better at misdirection than Iskaral Pust!’
They arrived to within twenty paces of the seething wall of sand. Swirling clouds of dust engulfed them. Iskaral Pust moved close, revealing a grin filled with grit. ‘Hold tight, Kalam Mekhar!’ Then he vanished.
A massive shape loomed over the assassin, and he was suddenly gathered up in a swarm of arms.
The azalan.
Running, now, flowing faster than any horse along the edge of the Whirlwind Wall. The demon tucked Kalam close under its torso-then plunged through.
A thundering roar filled the assassin’s ears, sand flailing against his skin. He squeezed shut his eyes.
Multiple thuds, and the azalan was racing across packed sand. Ahead lay the ruins of a city.
Fire flared beneath the demon, a path of flames raging in its wake.
The raised tel of the dead city rose before them. The azalan did not even slow, swarming up the ragged wall. A fissure loomed, not large enough for the demon-but sufficient for Kalam.
He was flung into the crack as the azalan flowed over it. Landing heavily amidst rubble and potsherds. Deep in the fissure’s shadow.
Sudden thunder overhead, shaking the rock. Then again and again, seeming to stitch a path back towards the wall of sand. The detonations then ceased, and only the roar of the Whirlwind remained.
I think he made it back out. Fast bastard.
The assassin remained motionless for a time, wondering if the ruse had succeeded. Either way, he would wait for night before venturing out.
He could no longer hear the song. Something to be grateful for.
The walls of the fissure revealed layer upon layer of potsherds on one side, a sunken and heaved section of cobblestone street on another, and the flank of a building’s interior wall-the plaster chipped and scarred-on the last. The rubble beneath him was loose and felt deep.
Checking his weapons, Kalam settled down to wait.
Apsalar in his arms, Cutter emerged from the gateway. The woman’s weight sent waves of pain through his bruised shoulder, and he did not think he would be able to carry her for long.
Thirty paces ahead, at the edge of the clearing where the two trails converged, lay scores of corpses. And in their midst stood Cotillion.
Cutter walked over to the shadow god. The Tiste Edur lay heaped in a ring around a clear spot off to the left, but Cotillion’s attention seemed to be on one body in particular, lying at his feet. As the Daru approached, the god slowly settled down into a crouch, reaching out to brush hair back from the corpse’s face.
It was the old witch, Cutter saw, the one who had been burned. The one I thought was the source of power in the Malazan party. But it wasn’t her. It was Traveller. He halted a few paces away, brought up short by Cotillion’s expression, the ravaged look that made him suddenly appear twenty years older. The gloved hand that had swept the hair back now caressed the dead woman’s scorched face.
‘You knew her?’ Cutter asked.
‘Hawl,’ he replied after a moment. ‘I’d thought Surly had taken them all out. None of the Talon’s command left. I thought she was dead.’
‘She is.’ Then he snapped his mouth shut. A damned miserable thing to say-
‘I made them good at hiding,’ Cotillion went on, eyes still on the woman lying in the bloody, trampled grass. ‘Good enough to hide even from me, it seems.’
‘What do you think she was doing here?’
Cotillion flinched slightly. ‘The wrong question, Cutter. Rather, why was she with Traveller? What is the Talon up to? And Traveller… gods, did he know who she was? Of course he did-oh, she’s aged and not well, but even so…’
‘You could just ask him,’ Cutter murmured, grunting as he shifted Apsalar’s weight in his arms. ‘He’s in the courtyard behind us, after all.’
Cotillion reached down to the woman’s neck and lifted into view something strung on a thong. A yellow-stained talon of some sort. He pulled it loose, studied it for a moment, then twisted round and flung it towards Cutter.
It struck his chest, then fell to lie in Apsalar’s lap.
The Daru stared down at it for a moment, then looked up and met the god’s eyes.
‘Go to the Edur ship, Cutter. I am sending you two to another… agent of ours.’
‘To do what?’
‘To wait. In case you are needed.’
‘For what?’
‘To assist others in taking down the Master of the Talon.’
‘Do you know where he or she is?’
He lifted Hawl into his arms and straightened. ‘I have a suspicion. Now, finally, a suspicion about all of this.’ He turned, the frail figure held lightly in his arms, and studied Cutter for a moment. A momentary, wan smile. ‘Look at the two of us,’ he said, then he swung away and began walking towards the forest trail.
Cutter stared after him.
Then shouted: ‘It’s not the same! It’s not!’ We’re not-
The forest shadows swallowed the god.
Cutter hissed a curse, then he turned to the trail that led down to the shoreline.
The god Cotillion walked on until he reached a small glade off to one side of the path. He carried his burden into its centre, and gently set her down.
A host of shadows spun into being opposite, until the vague, insubstantial form of Shadowthrone slowly resolved itself. For a change, the god said nothing for a long time.
Cotillion knelt beside Hawl’s body. ‘Traveller is here, Ammanas. In the Edur ruins.’
Ammanas grunted softly, then shrugged. ‘He’ll have no interest in answering our questions. He never did. Stubborn as any Dal Honese.’
‘You’re Dal Honese,’ Cotillion observed.
‘Precisely.’ Ammanas slipped noiselessly forward until he was on the other side of the corpse. ‘It’s her, isn’t it.’
‘It is.’
‘How many times do our followers have to die, Cotillion?’ the god asked, then sighed. ‘Then again, she clearly ceased being a follower some time ago.’
‘She thought we were gone, Ammanas. The Emperor and Dancer. Gone. Dead.’
‘And in a way, she was right.’
‘In a way, aye. But not in the most important way.’
‘Which is?’
Cotillion glanced up, then grimaced. ‘She was a friend.’
‘Ah, that most important way.’ Ammanas was silent for a moment, then he asked, ‘Will you pursue this?’
‘I see little choice. The Talon is up to something. We need to stop them-’
‘No, friend. We need to ensure that they fail. Have you found a… trail?’
‘More than that. I’ve realized who is masterminding the whole thing.’
Shadowthrone’s hooded head cocked slightly. ‘And that is where Cutter and Apsalar are going now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are they sufficient?’
Cotillion shook his head. ‘I have other agents available. But I would Apsalar be relatively close, in case something goes wrong.’
Ammanas nodded. ‘So, where?’
‘Raraku.’
Though he could not see it, Cotillion knew that his companion’s face was splitting into a broad grin. ‘Ah, dear Rope, time’s come, I think, that I should tell you more of my own endeavours…’
‘The diamonds I gave Kalam? I’d wondered about those.’
Ammanas gestured at Hawl’s corpse. ‘Let us take her home-our home, that is. And then we must speak… at length.’
Cotillion nodded.
‘Besides,’ Shadowthrone added as he straightened, ‘Traveller being so close by makes me nervous.’
A moment later, the glade was empty, barring a few sourceless shadows that swiftly dwindled into nothing.
Cutter reached the sandstone shoreline. Four runners had been pulled up on the flat, grainy shelf of rock. Anchored in the bay beyond were two large dromons, both badly damaged.
Around the runners gear lay scattered, and two huge trees had been felled and dragged close-probably intended to replace the snapped masts. Barrels containing salted fish had been broached, while other casks stood in a row nearby, refilled with fresh water.
Cutter set Apsalar down, then approached one of the runners. They were about fifteen paces from bow to stern, broad of beam with an unstepped mast and side-mounted steering oar. There were two oarlocks to a side. The gunnels were crowded with riotous carvings.
A sudden coughing fit from Apsalar swung him round.
She bolted upright, spat to clear her throat, then wrapped her arms about herself as shivering racked through her.
Cutter quickly returned to her side.
‘D-Darist?’
‘Dead. But so are all the Edur. There was one among the Malazans…’
‘The one of power. I felt him. Such… anger!’
Cutter went over to the nearest water cask, found a ladle. He dipped it full and walked back. ‘He called himself Traveller.’
‘I know him,’ she whispered, then shuddered. ‘Not my memories. Dancer’s. Dancer knew him. Knew him well. They were… three. It was never just the two of them-did you know that? Never just Dancer and Kellanved. No, he was there. Almost from the very beginning. Before Tayschrenn, before Dujek, before even Surly.’
‘Well, it makes no difference now, Apsalar,’ Cutter said. ‘We need to leave this damned island-Traveller can have it, as far as I’m concerned. Are you recovered enough to help me get one of these runners into the water? We’ve a bounty in supplies, too-’
‘Where are we going?’
He hesitated.
Her dark eyes flattened. ‘Cotillion.’
‘Another task for us, aye.’
‘Do not walk this path, Crokus.’
He scowled. ‘I thought you’d appreciate the company.’ He offered her the ladle.
She studied him for a long moment, then slowly accepted it.
‘Pan’potsun Hills.’
‘I know,’ Lostara drawled.
Pearl smiled. ‘Of course you would. And now, at last, you discover the reason I asked you along-’
‘Wait a minute. You couldn’t have known where this trail would lead-’
‘Well, true, but I have faith in blind nature’s penchant for cycles. In any case, is there a buried city nearby?’
‘Nearby? You mean, apart from the one we’re standing on?’ She was pleased to see his jaw drop. ‘What did you think all these flat-topped hills were, Claw?’
He loosened his cloak. ‘Then again, this place will suit just fine.’
‘For what?’
He cast her a sardonic glance. ‘Well, dear, a ritual. We need to find a trail, a sorcerous one, and it’s old. Did you imagine we would just wander directionless through this wasteland in the hopes of finding something?’
‘Odd, I thought that was what we’ve been doing for days.’
‘Just getting some distance between us and that damned Imass head,’ he replied, walking over to a flat stretch of stone, where he began kicking it clear of rubble. ‘I could feel its unhuman eyes on us all the way across that valley.’
‘Him and the vultures, aye.’ She tilted her head back and studied the cloudless sky. ‘Still with us, in fact. Those damned birds. Not surprising. We’re almost out of water, with even less food. In a day or two we’ll be in serious trouble.’
‘I will leave such mundane worries with you, Lostara.’
‘Meaning, if all else fails, you can always kill and eat me, right? But what if I decide to kill you first? Obsessed as I am with mundane worries.’
The Claw settled down into a crosslegged position. ‘It’s become much cooler here, don’t you think? A localized phenomenon, I suspect. Although I would imagine that some measure of success in the ritual I am about to enact should warm things up somewhat.’
‘If only the excitement of disbelief,’ Lostara muttered, walking over to the edge of the tel and looking southwestward to where the red wall of the Whirlwind cut a curving slash across the desert. Behind her, she heard muted words, spoken in some language unknown to her. Probably gibberish. I’ve seen enough mages at work to know they don’t need words… not unless they’re performing. Pearl was probably doing just that. He was one for poses, even while affecting indifference to his audience of one. A man seeking his name in tomes of history. Some crucial role upon which the fate of the empire pivots.
She turned as he slapped dust from hands, and saw him rising, a troubled frown on his all-too-handsome face.
‘That didn’t take long,’ she said.
‘No.’ Even he sounded surprised. ‘I was fortunate indeed. A local earth spirit was killed… close by. By a confluence of dire fates, an incidental casualty. Its ghost lingers, like a child seeking lost parents, and so would speak to any and every stranger who happens by, provided that stranger is prepared to listen.’
Lostara grunted. ‘All right, and what did it have to say?’
‘A terrible incident-well, the terrible incident, the one that killed the spirit-the details of which lead me to conclude there is some connec-’
‘Good,’ she interrupted. ‘Lead on, we’re wasting time.’
He fell silent, giving her a wounded look that might well have been sincere. I asked the question, I should at least let him answer it.
A gesture, and he was making his way down the tel’s steep, stepped side.
She shouldered her pack and followed.
Reaching the base, the Claw led her around its flank and directly southward across a stony flat. The sunlight bounced from its bleached surface with a fierce, blinding glare. Barring a few ants scurrying underfoot, there was no sign of life on this withered stretch of ground. Small stones lay in elongated clusters here and there, as if describing the shorelines of a dying lake, a lake that had dwindled into a scatter of pools, leaving nothing but crusted salt.
They walked on through the afternoon, until a ridge of hills became visible to the southwest, with another massive mesa rising to its left. The flat began to form a discernible basin that seemed to continue on between the two formations. With dusk only moments away, they reached the even base of that descent, the mesa looming on their left, the broken hill ahead and to their right.
Towards the centre of this flat lay the wreckage of a trader’s wagon, surrounded by scorched ground where white ashes spun in small vortices that seemed incapable of going anywhere.
Pearl leading, they strode into the strange burned circle.
The ashes were filled with tiny bones, burned white and grey by some intense heat, crunching underfoot. Bemused, Lostara crouched down to study them. ‘Birds?’ she wondered aloud.
Pearl’s gaze was on the wagon or, perhaps, something just beyond it. At her question he shook his head. ‘No, lass. Rats.’
She saw a tiny skull lying at her feet, confirming his words. ‘There are rats of a sort, in the rocky areas-’
He glanced over at her. ‘These are-were-D’ivers. A particularly unpleasant individual named Gryllen.’
‘He was slain here?’
‘I don’t think so. Badly hurt, perhaps.’ Pearl walked over to a larger heap of ash, and squatted to sweep it away.
Lostara approached.
He was uncovering a corpse, nothing but bones-and those bones were all terribly gnawed.
‘Poor bastard.’
Pearl said nothing. He reached down into the collapsed skeleton and lifted into view a small chunk of metal. ‘Melted,’ he muttered after a moment, ‘but I’d say it’s a Malazan sigil. Mage cadre.’
There were four additional heaps similar to that which had hidden the chewed bones. Lostara walked to the nearest one and began kicking the ash away.
‘This one’s whole!’ she hissed, seeing fire-blackened flesh.
Pearl came over. Together, they brushed the corpse clear from the hips upward. Its clothing had been mostly burned off, and fire had raced across the skin but had seemed incapable of doing much more than scorch the surface.
As the Claw swept the last of the ash from the corpse’s face, its eyes opened.
Cursing, Lostara leapt back, one hand sweeping her sword free of its scabbard.
‘It’s all right,’ Pearl said, ‘this thing isn’t going anywhere, lass.’
Behind the corpse’s wrinkled, collapsed lids, there were only gaping pits. Its lips had peeled back with desiccation, leaving it with a ghastly, blackened grin.
‘What remains?’ Pearl asked it. ‘Can you still speak?’
Faint sounds rasped from it, forcing Pearl to lean closer.
‘What did it say?’ Lostara demanded.
The Claw glanced back at her. ‘He said, “I am named Clam, and I died a terrible death.” ’
‘No argument there-’
‘And then he became an undead porter.’
‘For Gryllen?’
‘Aye.’
She sheathed her tulwar. ‘That seems a singularly unpleasant profession following death.’
Pearl’s brows rose, then he smiled. ‘Alas, we won’t get much more from dear old Clam. Nor the others. The sorcery holding them animate fades. Meaning Gryllen is either dead or a long way away. In any case, recall the warren of fire-it was unleashed here, in a strange manner. And it left us a trail.’
‘It’s too dark, Pearl. We should camp.’
‘Here?’
She reconsidered, then scowled in the gloom. ‘Perhaps not, but none the less I am weary, and if we’re looking for signs, we’ll need daylight in any case.’
Pearl strode from the circle of ash. A gesture and a sphere of light slowly formed in the air above him. ‘The trail does not lead far, I believe. One last task, Lostara. Then we can find somewhere to camp.’
‘Oh, very well. Lead on, Pearl.’
Whatever signs he followed, they were not visible to Lostara. Even stranger, it seemed to be a weaving, wandering one, a detail that had the Claw frowning, his steps hesitant, cautious. Before too long, he was barely moving at all, edging forward by the smallest increments. And she saw that his face was beaded with sweat.
She bit back on her questions, but slowly drew her sword once more.
Then, finally, they came to another corpse.
The breath whooshed from Pearl, and he sank down to his knees in front of the large, burned body.
She waited until his breathing slowed, then cleared her throat and said, ‘What just happened, Pearl?’
‘Hood was here,’ he whispered.
‘Aye, I can well see that-’
‘No, you don’t understand.’ He reached out to the corpse, his hand closing into a fist above its broad chest, then punched down.
The body was simply a shell. It collapsed with a dusty crunch beneath the blow.
He glared back at her. ‘Hood was here. The god himself, Lostara. Came to take this man-not just his soul, but also the flesh-all that had been infected by the warren of fire-the warren of light, to be more precise. Gods, what I would do for a Deck of Dragons right now. There’s been a change in Hood’s… household.’
‘And what is the significance of all this?’ she asked. ‘I thought we were looking for Felisin.’
‘You’re not thinking, lass. Remember Stormy’s tale. And Truth’s. Felisin, Heboric, Kulp and Baudin. We found what was left of Kulp back at Gryllen’s wagon. And this’-his gesture was fierce-‘is Baudin. The damned Talon-though the proof’s not around his neck, alas. Remember their strange skin? Gesler, Stormy, Truth? The same thing happened to Baudin, here.’
‘You called it an infection.’
‘Well, I don’t know what it is. That warren changed them. There’s no telling in what way.’
‘So, we’re left with Felisin and Heboric Light Touch.’
He nodded.
‘Then I feel I should tell you something,’ Lostara continued. ‘It may not be relevant…’
‘Go on, lass.’
She turned to face the hills to the southwest. ‘When we trailed that agent of Sha’ik’s… into those hills-’
‘Kalam Mekhar.’
‘Aye. And we ambushed Sha’ik up at the old temple at the summit-on the trail leading into Raraku-’
‘As you have described.’
She ignored his impatience. ‘We would have seen all this. Thus, the events we’ve just stumbled upon here occurred after our ambush.’
‘Well, yes.’
She sighed and crossed her arms. ‘Felisin and Heboric are with the army of the Apocalpyse, Pearl. In Raraku.’
‘What makes you so certain?’
She shrugged. ‘Where else would they be? Think, man. Felisin’s hatred of the Malazan Empire must be all-consuming. Nor would Heboric hold much love for the empire that imprisoned and condemned him. They were desperate, after Gryllen’s attack. After Baudin and Kulp died. Desperate, and probably hurting.’
He slowly nodded, straightened from his crouch beside the corpse. ‘One thing you’ve never explained to me, Lostara. Why did your ambush fail?’
‘It didn’t. We killed Sha’ik-I would swear to it. A quarrel in the forehead. We could not recover the body because of her guards, who proved too much for our company. We killed her, Pearl.’
‘Then who in Hood’s name is commanding the Apocalypse?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can you show me this place of ambush?’
‘In the morning, aye. I can take you right there.’ He simply stared at her, even as the sphere of light above them began to waver, then finally vanished with a faint sigh.
His memories had awakened. What had lain within the T’lan Imass, layered, indurated by the countless centuries, was a landscape Onrack could read once more. And so, what he saw before him now… gone were the mesas on the horizon, the wind-sculpted towers of sandstone, the sweeps of windblown sand and white ribbons of ground coral. Gone the gorges, arroyos and dead riverbeds, the planted fields and irrigation ditches. Even the city to the north, on the horizon’s very edge, clinging like a tumour to the vast winding river, became insubstantial, ephemeral to his mind’s eye.
And all that he now saw was as it had been… so very long ago.
The inland sea’s cloudy waves, rolling like the promise of eternity, along a shoreline of gravel that stretched north, unbroken all the way to the mountains that would one day be called the Thalas, and south, down to encompass the remnant now known as the Clatar Sea. Coral reefs revealed their sharkskin spines a sixth of a league beyond the beach, over which wheeled seagulls and long-beaked birds long since extinct.
There were figures walking along the strand. Renig Obar’s clan, come to trade whale ivory and dhenrabi oil from their tundra homelands, and it seemed they had brought the chill winds with them… or perhaps the unseemly weather that had come to these warm climes hinted of something darker. A Jaghut, hidden in some fasthold, stirring the cauldron of Omtose Phellack. Much more of this and the reefs would die, and with them all the creatures that depended on them.
A breath of unease fluttered through the Onrack who was flesh and blood. But he had stepped aside. No longer a bonecaster for his clan-Absin Tholai was far superior in the hidden arts, after all, and more inclined to the hungry ambition necessary among those who followed the Path of Tellann. All too often, Onrack had found his mind drawn to other things.
To raw beauty, such as he saw before him now. He was not one for fighting, for rituals of destruction. He was always reluctant to dance in the deeper recesses of the caves, where the drums pounded and the echoes rolled through flesh and bone as if one was lying in the path of a stampeding herd of ranag-a herd such as the one Onrack had blown onto the cave walls around them. His mouth bitter with spit, charcoal and ochre, the backs of his hands stained where they had blocked the spray from his lips, defining the shapes on the stone. Art was done in solitude, images fashioned without light, on unseen walls, when the rest of the clan slept in the outer caverns. And it was a simple truth, that Onrack had grown skilled in the sorcery of paint out of that desire to be apart, to be alone.
Among a people where solitude was as close to a crime as possible. Where to separate was to weaken. Where the very breaking of vision into its components-from seeing to observing, from resurrecting memory and reshaping it beyond the eye’s reach, onto walls of stone-demanded a fine-edged, potentially deadly propensity.
A poor bonecaster. Onrack, you were never what you were meant to be. And when you broke the unwritten covenant and painted a truthful image of a mortal Imass, when you trapped that lovely, dark woman in time, there in the cavern no-one was meant to find… ah, then you fell to the wrath of kin. Of Logros himself, and the First Sword.
But he remembered the expression on the young face of Onos T’oolan, when he had first looked upon the painting of his sister. Wonder and awe, and a resurgence of an abiding love-Onrack was certain that he had seen such in the First Sword’s face, was certain that others had, as well, though of course none spoke of it. The law had been broken, and would be answered with severity.
He never knew if Kilava had herself gone to see the painting; had never known if she had been angered, or had seen sufficient to understand the blood of his own heart that had gone into that image.
But that is the last memory I now come to.
‘Your silences,’ Trull Sengar muttered, ‘always send shivers through me, T’lan Imass.’
‘The night before the Ritual,’ Onrack replied. ‘Not far from this place where we now stand. I was to have been banished from my tribe. I had committed a crime to which there was no other answer. Instead, events eclipsed the clans. Four Jaghut tyrants had risen and had formed a compact. They sought to destroy this land-as indeed they have.’
The Tiste Edur said nothing, perhaps wondering what, precisely, had been destroyed. Along the river there were irrigation ditches, and strips of rich green crops awaiting the season’s turn. Roads and farmsteads, the occasional temple, and only to the southwest, along that horizon, did the broken ridge of treeless bluffs mar the scene.
‘I was in the cavern-in the place of my crime,’ Onrack continued after a moment. ‘In darkness, of course. My last night, I’d thought, among my own kind. Though in truth I was already alone, driven from the camp to this final place of solitude. And then someone came. A touch. A body, warm. Soft beyond belief-no, not my wife, she had been among the first to shun me, for what I had done, for the betrayal it had meant. No, a woman unknown to me in the darkness…’
Was it her? I will never know. She was gone in the morning, gone from all of us, even as the Ritual was proclaimed and the clans gathered. She defied the call-no, more horrible yet, she had killed her own kin, all but Onos himself. He had managed to drive her off-the truest measure of his extraordinary martial prowess.
Was it her? Was there blood unseen on her hands? That dried, crumbled powder I found on my own skin-which I’d thought had come from the overturned bowl of paint. Fled from Onos… to me, in my shameful cave.
And who did I hear in the passage beyond? In the midst of our love-making, did someone come upon us and see what I myself could not?
‘You need say no more, Onrack,’ Trull said softly.
True. And were I mortal flesh, you would see me weep, and thus say what you have just said. Thus, my grief is not lost to your eyes, Trull Sengar. And yet still you ask why I proclaimed my vow…
‘The trail of the renegades is… fresh,’ Onrack said after a moment.
Trull half smiled. ‘And you enjoy killing.’
‘Artistry finds new forms, Edur. It defies being silenced.’ The T’lan Imass slowly turned to face him. ‘Of course, changes have come to us. I am no longer free to pursue this hunt… unless you wish the same.’
Trull grimaced, scanned the lands to the southwest. ‘Well, it’s not as inviting a prospect as it once was, I’ll grant you. But, Onrack, these renegades are agents in the betrayal of my people, and I mean to discover as much as I can of their role. Thus, we must find them.’
‘And speak with them.’
‘Speak with them first, aye, and then you can kill them.’
‘I no longer believe I am capable of that, Trull Sengar. I am too badly damaged. Even so, Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan are pursuing us. They will suffice.’
The Tiste Edur’s head had turned at this. ‘Just the two of them? You are certain?’
‘My powers are diminished, but yes, I believe so.’
‘How close?’
‘It does not matter. They withhold their desire for vengeance against me… so that I might lead them to those they have hunted from the very beginning.’
‘They suspect you will join the renegades, don’t they?’
‘Broken kin. Aye, they do.’
‘And will you?’
Onrack studied the Tiste Edur for a moment. ‘Only if you do, Trull Sengar.’
They were at the very edge of cultivated land, and so it was relatively easy to avoid contact with any of the local residents. The lone road they crossed was empty of life in both directions for as far as they could see. Beyond the irrigated fields, the rugged natural landscape reasserted itself. Tufts of grasses, sprawls of water-smoothed gravel tracking down dry gulches and ravines, the occasional guldindha tree.
The hills ahead were saw-toothed, the facing side clawed into near cliffs.
Those hills were where the T’lan Imass had broken the ice sheets, the first place of defiance. To protect the holy sites, the hidden caves, the flint quarries. Where, now, the weapons of the fallen were placed.
Weapons these renegades would reclaim. There was no provenance to the sorcery investing those stone blades, at least with respect to Tellann. They would feed the ones who held them, provided they were kin to the makers-or indeed made by those very hands long ago. Imass, then, since the art among the mortal peoples was long lost. Also, finding those weapons would give the renegades their final freedom, severing the power of Tellann from their bodies.
‘You spoke of betraying your clan,’ Trull Sengar said as they approached the hills. ‘These seem to be old memories, Onrack.’
‘Perhaps we are destined to repeat our crimes, Trull Sengar. Memories have returned to me-all that I had thought lost. I do not know why.’
‘The severing of the Ritual?’
‘Possibly.’
‘What was your crime?’
‘I trapped a woman in time. Or so it seemed. I painted her likeness in a sacred cave. It is now my belief that, in so doing, I was responsible for the terrible murders that followed, for her leaving the clan. She could not join in the Ritual that made us immortal, for by my hand she had already become so. Did she know this? Was this the reason for her defying Logros and the First Sword? There are no answers to that. What madness stole her mind, so that she would kill her closest kin, so that, indeed, she would seek to kill the First Sword himself, her own brother?’
‘A woman not your mate, then.’
‘No. She was a bonecaster. A Soletaken.’
‘Yet you loved her.’
A lopsided shrug. ‘Obsession is its own poison, Trull Sengar.’
A narrow goat trail led up into the range, steep and winding in its ascent. They began climbing.
‘I would object,’ the Tiste Edur said, ‘to this notion of being doomed to repeat our mistakes, Onrack. Are no lessons learned? Does not experience lead to wisdom?’
‘Trull Sengar. I have just betrayed Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan. I have betrayed the T’lan Imass, for I chose not to accept my fate. Thus, the same crime as the one I committed long ago. I have always hungered for solitude from my kind. In the realm of the Nascent, I was content. As I was in the sacred caves that lie ahead.’
‘Content? And now, at this moment?’
Onrack was silent for a time. ‘When memories have returned, Trull Sengar, solitude is an illusion, for every silence is filled by a clamorous search for meaning.’
‘You’re sounding more… mortal with every day that passes, friend.’
‘Flawed, you mean.’
The Tiste Edur grunted. ‘Even so. Yet look at what you are doing right now, Onrack.’
‘What do you mean?’
Trull Sengar paused on the trail and looked at the T’lan Imass. His smile was sad. ‘You’re returning home.’
A short distance away were camped the Tiste Liosan. Battered, but alive. Which was, Malachar reflected, at least something.
Strange stars gleamed overhead, their light wavering, as if brimming with tears. The landscape stretching out beneath them seemed a lifeless wasteland of weathered rock and sand.
The fire they had built in the lee of a humped mesa had drawn strange moths the size of small birds, as well as a host of other flying creatures, including winged lizards. A swarm of flies had descended on them earlier, biting viciously before vanishing as quickly as they had come. And now, those bites seemed to crawl, as if the insects had left something behind.
There was, to Malachar’s mind, an air of… unwelcome to this realm. He scratched at one of the lumps on his arm, hissed as he felt something squirm beneath the hot skin. Turning back to the fire, he studied his seneschal.
Jorrude knelt beside the hearth, head lowered-a position that had not changed in some time-and Malachar’s disquiet deepened. Enias squatted close by the seneschal, ready to move if yet another fit of anguish overwhelmed his master, but those disturbing sessions were arriving ever less frequently. Orenas remained guarding the horses, and Malachar knew he stood with sword drawn in the darkness beyond the fire’s light.
There would be an accounting one day, he knew, with the T’lan Imass. The Tiste Liosan had proceeded with the ritual in good faith. They had been too open. Never trust a corpse. Malachar did not know if such a warning was found in the sacred text of Osric’s Visions. If not, he would see that it was added to the collected wisdom of the Tiste Liosan. When we return. If we return.
Jorrude slowly straightened. His face was ravaged with grief. ‘The Guardian is dead,’ he announced. ‘Our realm is assailed, but our brothers and sisters have been warned and even now ride out to the gates. The Tiste Liosan will hold. Until Osric’s return, we shall hold.’ He slowly swung to face each of them in turn, including Orenas who silently appeared out of the gloom. ‘For us, another task. The one we were assigned to complete. On this realm, somewhere, we will find the trespassers. The thieves of the Fire. I have quested, and they have never been closer to my senses. They are in this world, and we shall find them.’
Malachar waited, for he knew there was more.
Jorrude then smiled. ‘My brothers. We know nothing of this place. But that is a disadvantage that will prove temporary, for I have also sensed the presence of an old friend to the Tiste Liosan. Not far away. We shall seek him out-our first task-and ask him to acquaint us with the rigours of this land.’
‘Who is this old friend, Seneschal?’ Enias asked.
‘The Maker of Time, Brother Enias.’
Malachar slowly nodded. A friend of the Tiste Liosan indeed. Slayer of the Ten Thousand. Icarium.
‘Orenas,’ Jorrude said, ‘prepare our horses.’